The Peacock Farm
by BigPink
Summary: Dean has an ulterior motive for taking the ‘X Files location tour’. NOT an X Files crossover. Funny, angstyish, creepy. All the good stuff. And now, with Chapter 6 and epilogue, COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

The Peacock Farm – Chapter 1

Summary: Who knew Dean was an X Files fan? Sam thinks that Dean's obsession is what's taking them north of the border, but it has more to do with the Benders than the Peacocks. A little romp in metafictionland.

Disclaimer: No animals were abused in writing this, except for the cat, who had to hear me read it aloud. Ad nauseum. Oh, and I own nothing.

Rating: T for tough language. Spoilers abound, but let's face it: if you're reading Supernatural fan fiction, you've watched every episode, haven't you?

--

"You're joking, right?" Sam didn't really expect an answer; he knew that look. Too cocky by half, wanting him – no, _daring_ him – to get worked up. Like he was five or something. Something younger, pick an age. Not much to do about that, not now. One of those things he could do nothing about, no matter what, the fact that he was always going to be younger.

"Joking?" Dean repeated, shifting the car forward as the line moved up towards Canadian Customs and pointedly ignoring the brochure Sam was waving around like an accusation.

"Don't tell me," Sam ventured after a moment, slumping down in the seat, trying for bored indifference. Failing. "This is your first international trip, isn't it? What, did you catch a late-night infomercial on starving orphans? Cause, man, if that's the case, we oughta be heading south. Not too many starving orphans up in Canada."

Dean leaned over suddenly, popped open the glove, fished around as though he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. Sam glared at the back of Dean's head, shifted his long legs to make it harder for him. As if; Dean knew the contents of his car in the same way some people knew all the lyrics of Broadway musicals. Then, on cue –

"And here we go...passport?" As though offering an open packet of M&Ms. As if, indeed.

"How did I get a passport?" Sam asked, finally, unable to truly understand how Dean did what he did.

"Well, technically..."

Flipped it open to find a distressingly bad black and white photo of himself that looked as though Dean had snapped it while Sam had been sleeping or drunk. Scanned the name. _Samuel Elton John_.

"You're joking, right?"

"Heard that one already."

"And you are?" Snatched the other passport fast out of his brother's loose grip. Meant to get it, of course. _Dean Geddy Lee_. Fantastic. Grinning that shit-eating grin that could get them into fifteen different sorts of trouble.

Not bothering to give his brother the satisfaction, Sam snapped the passports shut, threw them on the dashboard where they baked momentarily in the July heat before Dean gathered them together in anticipation of the upcoming booth. One car to go.

"Don't you think," Sam asked, for maybe the thirtieth time, "that the guns might present some problems for us? You know, international terrorism and all?"

"They won't search us," Dean replied, perfectly certain. "These are _Canadians_. If we're going to find trouble, it'll be coming the other way. We'll go through the mountains on the way back. No worries."

"And all for this?" Sam held up the brochure again. "You're joking. You gotta be joking."

"Told you -- I've heard that one already," Dean said, a genuine smile crossing his face, making something in Sam slide sideways like butter in a hot pan. God, he was believable.

"You were up late, weren't you?" Sam murmured, looking at the brochure again. They'd picked it up just outside of Seattle, at one of those tourist information kiosks by the side of the highway, where they'd stopped to use the toilet. A detour, Dean had suggested. Some fucking detour. A few years in high security prison, more like.

"Now, what do you mean by that?"

Sam watched in dismay as two customs officials approached the car in front of them, started to talk to both driver and passenger. California plates. A flashlight came out to inspect the undercarriage, then a dog. Shit.

"I'm thinking that's when you saw the reruns, when I was asleep and couldn't complain."

"Reruns?" Dean's face twisted into a complicated mix of disbelief and pride. "Hell, no. I'm a first run guy. Been a fan for-ever."

"Really? You probably saw the movie, too, didn't you?" Sam smiled gently, momentarily taken aback by Dean's happy disposition. For the last month, ever since they'd parted darkly from their father, left Chicago like the big shiny trap it had been, Dean had been a little, well, _preoccupied_. Preoccupied with putting miles between themselves and any of their father's usual hunting grounds, any place to which their father might return. As far away as possible, another country, even. As though something as abstract as a border might stop demons or fathers. Sam had stewed and worried; Dean had been like an arrow in flight, destined for some place Sam couldn't imagine. Not that Dean had shared any of his thoughts on the matter.

"Really. Just because you can't watch the X Files with the lights out, doesn't mean I have to. I _like_ that stuff."

Sam turned away to hide his sudden smirk. Yeah, Dean liked the scary stuff. What a surprise. The X Files, though?

The car ahead was being waved over to the inspection area, where it would be presumably torn apart by thorough Mounties bent on getting their man. Jesus. This might turn out badly, Sam thought as the Impala pulled forward.

--

Between the grin, the banter, and the silky smoothness that he really ought to bottle and sell, Dean got them across the border in fewer than three minutes. The customs clerk was young, female. It helped. Citizenship? How long are you planning to stay? Business? Pleasure?

Oh, pleasure, definitely. Sam had cringed. Literally cringed.

Only Dean would find anything pleasurable in touring around sites where the X-Files had been filmed. In its glory days, before production had followed David Duchovny's heart south, every stupid little nook and cranny of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia had played a part in the television show. Runaway American productions liked the value for the dollar, the trained workforce, the atmospheric climate. It was a place lush with a slightly off-beat edge. Sam had had friends from Seattle at Stanford; he knew the reputation just slightly north of the border – haven for 1960s draft dodgers, hippies, Wiccans, New Age ley line readers, crystal gazers. Always a fucking flip side, though, wasn't there? Satanic cults, he'd also read more recently. In his father's journal.

Not that John Winchester had ever gone to investigate, apparently. Just noted in his tight handwriting, scratches that had come to mean everything to Sam and Dean. Sam hadn't had the heart to point out their father's description to Dean; his older brother had been far too enthralled with the idea of exploring X-File locations. The brochure described them all, provided a helpful map of the Fraser Valley. Look! Here's where the alien warehouse is (Britannia Mining Museum – small entrance fee applies), and where Krychek's eyes had gone all oily...blah blah blah. Sam had no interest in the X-Files, never had. Less still on the production apparatus surrounding it. Little red location dots concentrated in Vancouver and the outlying areas, according to the map. One lone dot, further out.

One dot, further out, with a short description and a tiny still photo from the series, a ramshackle barn and dilapidated white house, curtains blowing out broken windows. The Peacock Farm. On a side road not far from Abbotsford, far up the Valley. And it looked way too familiar.

Sam's attention snapped up from the brochure's map, his eyes not focusing in time to read the sign as it whipped out of sight above them. Didn't matter. He knew where they were headed now.

"Sam," Dean leaned back into the car seat, one arm draped lazily over the back, steering with one finger and his knees, "What about dinner? C'mon. You gotta be hungry. I heard they make _wicked_ tofu burgers up here."

"Ha ha ha," Sam muttered distractedly, pretty much just going through the motions. Stunned that he, college educated, the _smart_ one, had been so totally suckerpunched by his brother. "Do you mind telling me," he said after a moment's concentration, during which time he'd mapped out about three different ways he could get the truth out of Dean, all which involved violence, "just what the hell we're doing here?"

The grin stayed on Dean's face for a brief moment longer than the smile in his eyes. "X-Files isn't enough?" he asked.

Now that he was looking for it, Sam heard the lie. "No, it isn't, Dean."

"Change of pace?" Dean tried it on like a new suit.

Sam shook his head. "How about the Peacock Farm?"

Dean shrugged, and Sam watched him literally close up, like one of those sea anemones. Damn. "The Peacock Farm," he repeated slowly. "Knew I'd seen it before."

Sam was smiling through this, knowing it wasn't a pleasant smile, that particular one. The one that Jessica had always said made him look as though he'd seen dark things. He'd never been an X-Files fan, and so had no way of recognizing that the Bender place, the farm where he'd been kept, been captured like a live bear in a pit, was an exact double of the farm where – according to the brochure – the "Peacock Brothers had kept their limbless mother under the bed! Creepy!"

Creepy, all right. But no more creepy than the look in Dean's eyes now, which told Sam that he was being protected, and it was for his own good, and that Sam's dark smile was nothing, _nothing_, compared to what his brother could muster even at a kid's birthday party.

"So, nut burger and fries with miso gravy now. Freaky fucking farm later. We have a deal?"

And Sam remained silent, arms crossed in front of him, letting the salt air stir his hair to tangles, watched as the mountains came up to meet them, herding them up the valley like early aboriginal people used to herd buffalo off cliffs.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**The Peacock Farm** – Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: The cat is still beta-ing, but seems to have suffered no lasting ill effects. Oh, and as always, I own nothing but the clothes on my back. The cat owns me.

**Rating**: T for language. Spoilers abound, post-Shadows.

**a/n:** I had this moment, see, where Smoking Man came into the frame during Scarecrow and I was shouting at the TV, "Don't trust him, Dean! It's Smoking Man!" Got me thinking: doesn't Dean know who this guy is? Despite this, no prior knowledge of X Files is required to read (and hopefully enjoy) this story.

--

Sam didn't think he could talk Dean into it, then remembered the most effective yet juvenile weapon in his fraternal arsenal: truth or dare. Hey, Dean – tell me something true about yourself, or do this insane thing. Take your pick, man.

Hence, sushi for lunch instead of deep fried chicken, or burgers, or pizza. Sam hadn't had a decent futomaki roll since Stanford and he'd be damned if he'd pass up the opportunity to sample what was rumored as the best sushi this side of the Pacific. Strategic planning was called for, and he sure as hell wasn't ready to tramp around an abandoned movie set on an empty stomach, or worse, with a bellyful of grease. Sam was propelled to action by the fact that Dean was signaling his intention to pull into a – what was that? A Wendy's? A Tim Hortons? What the hell was _that_? Time for evasive action.

"So, Geddy Lee, mind telling me where you think Dad is?"

Ooh, a hit, if he was keeping track of these things. Visibly flinched. Dean took a deep breath for a distracted moment before glancing at Sam. Still, his brother parked the car and didn't immediately get out. Tim Hortons was apparently Canadian for donut. No fucking way, not on his watch. Give me fresh raw fish, or give me death.

"Somewhere not here," Dean answered shortly, not looking at Sam anymore.

Sam scratched an eyebrow. The long raking cuts he'd carried since Chicago still gave him a bit of trouble, but he'd picked up an aloe plant at an Oregon farmer's market and it was doing wonders. As they'd covered the miles along the spectacular Oregon coast northward, he'd caught Dean admiring his rapidly fading scars. Then caught him breaking off an aloe tendril one night when he'd thought Sam had been in the motel's bathroom, rubbing it on his own cuts. Sam had laughed so hard he'd thought he'd throw up.

Another try, then. "Did you tell him where we're going?" In addition to furtively rubbing aloe on his face when he thought Sam wasn't looking, Dean had been text messaging like it was a dirty little secret.

"Course I did. Man wants to know."

Right, sure he does, Sam thought before he could edit himself. Man wants to know all about us, doesn't he? But that was a learned response, habitual. Man _did_ want to know, had made that abundantly clear in Chicago, among other things. And who, precisely, was avoiding those messy bits of Winchester interrelations? "He text back?" Sam asked, ignoring his own internal sarcasm.

Dean's hand played with the keys in the ignition. Time for the heavy artillery. Before Dean had time to fabricate some false platitude about their father's situation, Sam snatched the advantage. "Don't bother, Dean. Here's the thing – "

"Nope, no thing. Let's eat." Got the door open.

There had been too many miles like that, with Dean quietly thinking ahead, hurting so much he might as well be screaming, shutting off all meaningful communication in the process. Sam stayed put in the car, staring at the maddening promotional photos of Boston crèmes and honey crullers in the Tim Hortons windows, the backdrop of dryer lint blue mountains lending the shabby strip mall an air of exotic curiosity it really didn't deserve.

"You're a big fat chicken, Dean," he challenged quietly, loud enough to be heard and soft enough that Dean would think otherwise.

Dean stuck his head back in, brows all crooked, trying to act cooler than he probably felt, which was plenty cool enough most days. "You were saying?"

"Don't feel like chicken. Or donuts." Gestured with one insolent finger to the bamboo-covered windows of the Hi-Nippon Sushi and Sashimi restaurant nestled between the donut shop and a hardware store. "There." Leveled a steady glare at his brother and raised a brow. That hurt, actually, raising a brow. Still.

"Can't throw a rock around here without hitting a goddamn sushi place," Dean murmured, letting go of one thing and picking up another. "No raw fish for me. I'll try the sashimi stuff, Yoko Ono."

It didn't go well, but it went. Thank god for teriyaki chicken, otherwise Sam would have never heard the end of it. He'd brought in the brochure, still smarting from not figuring it out sooner.

Mouthful of BBQ eel notwithstanding, Sam made himself understood. "I can't believe you actually liked the X-Files. All those tame alien plotlines, cheap special effects..."

Dean wasn't taking the bait this time. "Solid acting."

Solid acting. That was the best he could come up with? "You're serious? Every single episode, it was raining. Didn't matter if they were supposed to be in Arizona or South Dakota – it was _always_ raining. Unbelievable."

"Thought you didn't watch it," Dean responded, unfazed.

Solid acting, my ass, Sam thought. "You thought Gillian Anderson was hot, didn't you?" Certain, of course, that he was right. How old would Dean have been? A lusty teenager with a fixation for red heads. Must have watched it when Sam was asleep, their father out hunting. Either path they were about to tread was going to be good.

"What are the chances the Bender farm looks so close to that one?" Dean chose the information path, as opposed to the squirm path. Chickenchickenchicken. Brought a huge smile to Sam's face, which Dean ignored. He turned the 'Take the X-Files Tour!' brochure around so he could see the listing a little more clearly. "Something's up with this, definitely."

"I remember that Peacock episode," Sam said, looking at the brochure, cutting Dean some needed slack.

"Was it raining?" Dean asked, smirking.

By not responding to the taunt, it lessened its sting. Very zen, Sam congratulated himself. "It was actually pretty scary, I'll give you that. Seriously fucked up Peacock brothers with that mom under the bed." He shuddered involuntarily, setting down his chopsticks. "Based on a true story?" he had to ask, because he saw that expression on Dean's face again, the one that let him know that his brother had been plotting.

"Based on a true story," Dean verified. "C'mon, tuna boy. Let's go see what kind of hillbilly crazy the Benders were part of."

--

Farmland covered the Valley the further away from the coast they drove. Strip malls, big box stores, slow drivers, farm vehicles, semis, open-backed trucks filled with immigrant farm workers. The mountains were never far away, serious mountains that got crisper and more forbidding the closer they got. There was no sense that this was a rainforest; the sun was high and hot, and Sam opened the window again as they drove, despite the sharp smell of manure and fertilizer. The main highway ran east away from Vancouver, which they saw only from a distance, shining by the water like a mirage, cupped by sea and mountain and sky. Goddamn beautiful, Sam thought, banishing memories of dripping rain. It had been cold at the Bender farm, and wet, the mud sucking at his boots on that long walk in the night, after.

What was Dean expecting to find out here? A replica of the Bender place, or some reasonable answer to the question, why them? No reasonable answers existed, not for them, not ever. Eviscerated women in flames on the ceiling, bleeding eyes, shooting rock salt at Dean as though he deserved it. Faith healers. _Nightmares_. Reason rarely entered into it. Change the subject. Anything will do.

"True story?" was all he had to say to get a response, this time. This, Dean could talk about, because it concerned the wackiness of some other family. Maybe finding fucked up families made Dean feel better about their own, because wasn't he a goddamn genius at it.

Dean had that serious voice, now, sounded like a narrator in a PBS documentary. Sam didn't point that out, never had, because it would be too galling, and Dean probably wouldn't get why it was funny. "Back in the 1960s. Whole farm was some kind of commune – a utopian experiment. You know, the usual megalomaniac guru doing tons of drugs and feeling the love."

"Doesn't sound remotely like hillbillies hunting human prey, Dean."

Dean shrugged, a tiny smile tugging one corner of his mouth toward the window, where he probably thought Sam couldn't see it. "X-Files location manager had to get special police permission to film there. Fifteen commune kids went missing over the course of ten years. The guru disappeared. The kids too; no children's bodies were ever found. But they found a limbless body of a woman under the floorboards of the house. Commune members say the guru was making human sacrifices to the Goddess of the Hunt." He spared a sardonic glance to Sam – get it, kiddo? "No one knows what really happened, but the case is still on the books, apparently."

"What is with you and kids?" Sam asked after a minute, earning a twisted scowl from Dean, which effectively told him his brother wasn't about to answer that at all.

Down a long road, hard-packed dirt, toward the base of the mountains, which rose as though they'd just grown there overnight, Douglas fir and cedar and spruce taking over from the hard-won farmland. The smell changed, was the scent of nature getting behind the wheel. Sam smiled at the thought, though it scared him in some essential way, like the time he'd tried surfing, only to be slapped silly by the waves, scrapes down his chest and sand in his trunks. Nature had a way of smacking you upside the head when you weren't looking. Sometimes even when you were. Boss of you, Sam Winchester. Mother nature and Dean. This time, he laughed out loud, earning another look.

As the Impala turned the corner, climbing slightly, the ridge flattened into an abandoned field, and the white house stood remarkably solid in the clearing, the forest hemming it in, barely contained by a disintegrating fence, trees ready to take over at the least lapse of agricultural vigilance.

Vigilance maintained by a young girl who looked old enough to drive, but not to drink, blond hair in her eyes as she stood by the farm's gate under a handpainted sign. 'Welcome to the Peacock Farm' in big letters, and smaller, underneath, 'entry by donation. All proceeds benefit the Fraser Valley Historical Society'.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**The Peacock Farm** – Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The cat is now giving me the cold shoulder, so this is completely beta-less. In my own little world, I'd play with the boys like I used to play with Barbies. Alas, I own neither anything Supernatural, X Files, nor even Barbies anymore.

**Rating**: T for a lot of unwholesome language and the occasional Canadian spelling. And lousy with spoilers, I tell ya.

**Fun Fact!** Kim Manners directed the X Files episode featuring the ultimate dysfunctional family, the Peacocks. The episode was from Season 4 and entitled – wait for it, fellow SN geeks – 'Home'. The episode remains one of the all-time most disturbing, and was banned/slapped with warnings even _before_ it aired on October 11, 1996. I've only seen it once, and I'm having nightmares just from doing the bare bones research I had to for this piece. If I knew where they'd filmed it, I'd never go there in a million years. Writing: cheaper than therapy.

--

Everything, even daytime access to supernaturally suspect sites apparently, came down to commerce. By donation, they found out, meant $5. Five Canadian dollars and Dean, in his doubtlessly extensive strategic planning, hadn't bothered to factor for foreign currency. Sam's mouth curved in amusement, watching his brother bristle. Maybe their father and his ghostbusters network ought to look into some kind of haunted house flexipass for multiple entries.

"It's okay," the girl said, serious as a cough in a poorhouse, not responding to Dean's lethal grin. "I'll take American. Can't give you the exchange, though." She leaned over, tanned and lovely and so totally in possession of Dean's number. She stared into the car's interior, glanced over at Sam in case he was more interesting. Freckles on nose and forearms, low sun lighting her like a church icon, mouth tilting into an ironic crooked-toothed smile. "It's for a good cause."

Her mother, Sam decided, must run the historical society, because this girl looked bored out of her _mind_. "Hey," he called to her, instinctively knowing that a soft disingenuous approach would go a lot further than a bad boy flirtation. This girl probably made happy face dots over her 'i's. "Can you give us a tour?"

"We have a walking tour map," she suggested tepidly, foregoing Sam's sad spaniel demeanor and turning to her booth, where she rummaged around before extracting a badly photocopied hand drawn map. "It's a loonie," she said unapologetically, not caring one way or another if they took it.

"Pardon?" Dean quirked, taking the map and scanning it quickly before handing it back to her. He glanced at Sam, who couldn't read his expression beyond a generic irritation.

"A dollar," not even looking at them anymore, thinking about dinner, or her boyfriend, or whether she liked crunchy or smooth better. "Helps the historical society. This building would have collapsed years ago without it." She waited as Sam fished around in his wallet for a dollar bill, and only then handed the map back to him. "Don't park on the garden. And we close in an hour. That's _plenty_ of time." She turned back to the booth, sat on a worn wooden stool and picked up her dog-eared book. Something about pants on the cover. Her job here was done. Sam chuckled, low and delighted, knowing that he wouldn't have to pay too much for that: Dean was in a reasonably good mood.

In response, Dean grunted, and gunned the car through the gate, a line forming between his brows. Sad, how Sam noticed these things. That line hadn't been there before Sam had gone to college. Those intervening years were something neither of them spoke about other than to strike ineffectual mocking blows _– well, back when you were a college boy, Sammy; Dean, how the hell did you find the yucky stuff before text messaging?_ Sam didn't like to think about what life had been like for Dean, out on the road alone or with their father; he barely liked to think about what it had been like _before_ Stanford. Little things called it up, though. Cassie, for example, or the more visible scars Dean carried, origin unknown to Sam. The line between the brows. Irretrievable years.

But that bulletproof belief in his own sexiness? Pure Dean, from birth to now. Like a bird flying into a window, the girl's imperviousness made a dull thunk against Dean's armour and it was worth a chuckle.

"What?" It was more of a noise than a word, one of Dean's characteristic grumbles.

The dirt patch that seemed to serve as a parking lot was empty. Late in the day for an outing, poor signage, indifferent service. Or maybe die-hard X-Files fans had already seen it all; maybe it was the kind of place that only attracted teenagers after dark. In any case, they would have the place to themselves. Knowing what they were there for, that was a small comfort.

"I'm just watching your edge disappear in the rearview mirror," Sam sighed as the Impala rolled to a stop. "Some objects aren't closer than they appear."

"What edge?" Dean barked half-heartedly as he got out. But it really wasn't a question, or an opening. It was a door, and it was closed. Dean leaned back in, resting his elbows on the car's top, light breeze tufting his hair, slanting sun touching his eyes green. Mr. Last Fucking Word. "Hearts, not happy faces. So not my type."

Oh, and that was brilliant. Since when was the psychic hotline on Dean's speed dial? Sam shook his head in disbelief as Dean slammed the car door and sauntered off toward the house, not waiting for his brother, either absolutely certain Sam had his back or not much caring.

Sam looked over the site plan as he followed more slowly behind. Large square for the house, with descriptions of what scenes had been filmed in which rooms; barn (with authentic farm machinery!); hand pump in the yard; memorial garden. Memorializing what? Sam wondered idly. Trails in the woods. He'd have to do some searching on the internet tonight, figure out what had happened before the X-Files filming had superceded the prior history of the house. He worried the house with his gaze: nominally white, with dark gaps in the roof, railing missing from the wrap-around porch, glazing gone from the ground floor windows, dirt paths circling the house as though they'd been worn down by hungry animals. His vision shifted, tilted suddenly, like opening his eyes underwater, like a photograph double-exposed. This was freakshow archaeology: he was seeing layers upon layers of nastiness, one on top of the other, surface Peacock, under that other stuff. Dark matter.

He focused on the site map, looking for any reference to the history of the property – who had lived there, who built the house, what the local legends were. But the text only described the last ten years, as though the house had been specially built for the television series. Where was Dean getting his information from? Was this all from their Dad? Because Sam hadn't seen direct mention of it in the journal, only that one reference to Satanism in the Lower Mainland. Exorcisms and possessions, the disappearance of children, sold into cults by their willing parents. But what had Dean specifically said about the Peacock Farm?

A commune, a guru, missing children, a dead dismembered woman. Surviving cult members somewhere about. Knowing Dean, they'd be talking to those people before long. Sam hated going into those interviews without having all his ducks in a row; he was a glutton for research and he knew it. It was part of the reason they made a good team: Sam got the facts straight and Dean was never afraid to hit anything with a big stick. Sam's niggling and unpredictable premonitions drew shit to them, and Dean's natural charm deflected most human inquiry. It was why, he reflected as he looked up and could no longer see his brother, Dean was already poking around inside the house and why Sam was wandering around outside reading a map. Sometimes it was teamwork, and sometimes it was just being separate.

By the time Sam pounded up the shoddy front steps, he could see Dean just inside the doorway. The interior wallpaper had not been restored any more than the clapboard exterior, had been half-ripped away, defaced with marker and pen – X-Files Rules! Suck my dick, Mrs Peacock! – and the house beyond was lost to the silty darkness that came after standing in the sun. It smelled of mold and age, and urine and dead rat. And it was not quiet: Dean had his wacky-ass EMF detector out and it was beeping. "Holy moly, Sammy," he murmured, not looking up. "We're in business."

It was upper case cold. Sam needed no hopped up CD player to tell him that serious shit had happened here, and not just television storytelling with actors and cameras. _Children, always with the children, Dean_. And a shearing white light bolted out of the sky as though they were in a doll's house and a kid with a flashlight had just ripped off the roof.

White light and the smell of heat and rubber. Slight voice, out of nowhere, somehow familiar, yelling instructions: Here's your mark! More intensity, please. And in response: Do you want me facing this way? Or this?

If it wasn't so fucking painful, he'd be laughing. Catching glimpses of actors, of a director, smelling prosthetics and industrial lights: this is just a dream, he told himself. They had long ago ceased being merely dreams, they were something else, but he couldn't bring himself to imagine the word 'vision', even in his own thoughts. That would have been nutty. But why this, now? Actors? And then fear, fear as though it was painted on the walls and it wasn't light, it was dark, it was very dark and it swam under the surface like a many-toothed serpent. They are all so scared, he thought.

Then he didn't think, for the pain intensified, felt as though that giant kid with the flashlight was bludgeoning him over the head with it, and all he could hear was screaming, the screaming of children, of infants –

And it was very bright, because the sun is always bright when you're looking at it without blinking and it's also painful to be shaken as hard as Dean was shaking him. He pushed back without thinking, but not hard enough to dislodge his brother's firm grip on his upper arms. They were outside on the porch and, damn, that low sun was bright on his face. It would take him a few moments to manage his ragged breathing, a few minutes for Dean to master that alien look of fear in his eyes. This was the only thing, ever, that scared Dean shitless. _This doesn't freak me out_. With a loose shrug, like he was facing a stupid poltergeist or a Jehovah's Witness at the door. Liar, liar.

"Well?" Dean asked, finally letting him go so he could lean against the house, underneath a wrought iron hook that might have once held a bell or triangle. Come and git it! Sam thought, completely incongruously. The dreams scared him, too. But Dean being scared? That took the cake.

"I'm not ready for this." He held Dean's stare, hard, trying to see if it was unbreakable. "We're not ready for this."

It stretched, that, until Sam could almost see the rubber band that held Dean's gaze to his, feel his brother's need to pull away, to not care quite as much as he did. Pointless, the not caring, Sam knew. They did brotherhood in different ways, but pointless to think it didn't exist, equally pointless to mention it in conversation. With a blunt nod, a concession to what Sam was saying and not saying, Dean looked away first, bent to pick up the squealing machine that had been thrown to the porch boards.

"I'm getting our five bucks back," he said, not looking at Sam, who was pale and picked clean, but who was also upright and about to get his way.

The girl, however, had already gone and they didn't bother to shut the gate when they left.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**The Peacock Farm** – Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: None of it, none of it, none of it. It all belongs to the suits. But the milk? Well, it's free.

**Rating:** T 'cause I write like I talk. And it gets a little, well, _icky_, but nothing you haven't read in the morning paper.

**Not-so-Fun Fact!** The case of the murdered guru, the button man and the cult actually happened in Victoria, BC, a number of years ago; I've changed a few details for obvious reasons, but it's the reason a very close friend of mine, who was a journalist covering the story at the time, still crosses the street when he sees Hare Krishna on the corner.

**--**

Mission, BC, 40 miles east of Vancouver 

Dean had stripped down to a sleeveless white undershirt and the nastiest pair of sweatpants he owned.

At least Sam hoped they were the worst thing in his brother's wardrobe; anything more shabby was unimaginable. They looked as though they could have run around the block completely on their own. And he was wearing them in public, no less.

Well, as public as an empty laundromat could be. Not that he blamed Dean; they were out of clean clothes and it was hot in the laundromat, hot even this early in the morning. Beat the rush, Dean had announced at about half past five, when they could still hear birds singing outside their motel room window and the sun was just tipping over the mountains. Apparently, he'd spotted the Sparklee Kleen ("free internet access while you wash!") when they'd cruised the shabbier part of Mission last night, looking for a cheap motel. They'd found one, of course; they always found one. Even though the room's air conditioner had hissed and died immediately, the Traveller's Rest Inn had the rare luxury of an outdoor pool, confined on three sides by the looming two-storey motel. The pool, Sam had found out last night, hadn't been cleaned in awhile. He'd followed up with a shower, just to be safe.

At the moment, Dean was giving the locals an eyeful; Sam, perched at a magazine-strewn table in the window with his laptop open, had caught the lingering glances of several attentive young women who had peered in the window. Some had passed by more than once, stealing looks. Dean had this effect, and he almost always knew it. Today, though, he was uncharacteristically oblivious, was trying, almost comically, to separate the darks from whites. Sam watched him puzzle over a striped shirt before throwing it in with the whites.

Sam plucked his damp t-shirt away from his chest as he tried to concentrate on the site he'd just found. He took a sip of coffee from a paper cup; damn, they knew how to make coffee around here, in addition to sushi. If he could only convince Dean to try one of the Thai restaurants, he'd die happy.

Done with sorting, and monopolizing no fewer than five washing machines, Dean came to the table, sat heavily, and glanced at Sam's screen before prising the lid off the coffee Sam had bought for him. Looked up with a _whatthehell_ expression in his eyes.

"Latte," Sam explained, tone dry. "It's a breakfast drink in many parts of the world. Just be happy I didn't give it to you in bowl. Here's a croissant."

"Shit," Dean muttered, tearing into the brown paper bag, "that's the last time I send you to sell the cow, Jack." Still, Sam's croissant had been warm and so fresh it had melted in his mouth. And there was no way that Dean would ever admit to enjoying it, not after what he'd said, so Sam had to be content to watch the pleased surprise war with Dean's regular morning grumpiness. "So, what have you found?" Dean sprayed flakes around the table, and Sam surreptitiously pulled the laptop closer.

He shrugged, bemused. "Old newspaper articles about the cult, dating mostly from 1972, when they discovered the body of Emily Jones, also known as Omni Radiance, under the floorboards. Emily had recently given birth, it says here, but they never found the baby. The guru, Ray Crimson, had disappeared, leaving the bloodied farm house, fifteen starving maltreated children, many of them his own, a couple of male hangers-on and five young women. Only one was officially married to Crimson – Aurora Berkley."

Dean sat with a particular poised, expectant look on his face, the way a large bird of prey waits. Alert, but somehow above it all. Until it sees something move, something small that scurries in the grass. And then it just _goes_. Sam waited.

"Candlemaker?" Dean asked, finally, causing Sam to jump, even though he'd been expecting him to say something. Just not that.

"Huh?" he responded, looking at his screen again for some sort of verification. "No, it says here that they sold produce at the Mission farmer's market, and that they had a button business. You know, they made and sold buttons with slogans and sayings on them. Where did you get the idea..."

Dean gestured with an open hand to a sign on the community bulletin board behind Sam's head. Amongst the advertisements for events – the upcoming airshow, a powwow out on the First Nations reserve, a demolition derby at the local raceway – were a few flyers for local products and services. Babysitting, raspberries, beeswax and honey, tarot card readings. And one for Aurora Candles. Fine print: contact A. Berkley. And a phone number.

"It can't be that easy," Sam warned, a little pissed off that Dean's research technique consisted mostly of sitting passively and waiting for shit to come to him. "Why would she have stuck..."

But Dean already had his phone out, was punching the number while he supplied his brother with a quick sliver of a grin. It was the grin that told Sam that Dean wasn't above taking advantage of the paranormal weirdness that surrounded them. That _was_ them, really. Sam had his nightmares; Dean had all kinds of luck.

Good luck, and bad luck. Sam wished he knew which this was going to be.

--

The sign said 'come on in' and so they did, a bell ringing above their heads as the smell of hot wax and perfume hit with the force of a freight train. Why they kept the door closed, Sam had no idea, because it was fifteen times hotter inside than out. Upstairs must be the living quarters, for the whole ground floor – cement and exposed 2x4s and pink insulation covered in plastic sheets – was devoted to candles. Dipped candles carved into loopy patterns, large beeswax columns, square candles that looked like party drinks with ice cubes floating in them. Cinder blocks and cedar planks stacked to make a display area; candle moulds and dipped candles hung from the ceiling. Beyond one large sheet of plastic, a figure moved. The radio hazed in and out of good reception, played something barely audible. The heat was incredible.

It had taken twenty minutes to drive there from the laundromat, twenty minutes of wearing clothes hot from the dryer, the windows down, roadside stands advertising raspberries, tomatoes, and home preserves. The Candleworks were open to the public any old time, Dean had found out with his quick phone call. No time like the present, he'd said immediately after hanging up.

A woman came out from behind the plastic sheet, rubbing her hands with a dishtowel. Her fingers were short and scarred with burns; she wore a tank top with flowers on it, graying hair tied back from a broad weathered face that looked like an old baseball mitt. Her light blue eyes touched them briefly before she smiled in cautious greeting.

She ought to cover up, Sam thought. If I was that scarred, I'd cover up.

A thin pink line ran across her throat, a wound at least twenty years old. Another, thicker, like a corded pink worm, ran from her forearm all the way to the inside of her elbow. Both of those knife wounds. On her chest, small flecks like birdprints in mud, crosshatching their way from collarbone to where the sunflower pattern of her top finally put an end to it. Burn marks.

Dean nodded to her, an easy smile coming to him, even teeth white against his tan, green eyes friendly and open. This was the part he was very good at; consequently, Sam hung back, not wanting to put Dean off his stride, observing, trying to figure out what – besides the scars – made this woman so _wrong_.

"Hi," Dean said, taking a step forward. "This place isn't easy to find."

"I gave you good directions, didn't I? You're the one who called," the woman replied, probably marking Dean's accent. Or, even more likely, she didn't get many customers. Her attention passed over Sam and he couldn't blink, let alone smile or muster anything remotely friendly. Goddamn Dean, why did he always have to be right? She felt as though was part of the overwhelming terror at the Peacock Farm, even though Sam couldn't pinpoint her in the blinding vision he'd had there yesterday.

They talked for a long time, about candles at first (and how Dean knew anything about candle-making defied all logic, was a telling legacy of those missing Stanford years), then safer ground, local history. She gave them herbal tea, which Dean drank without a murmur, outside under the second floor veranda – thank god, not inside the furnace of a workshop – and Aurora's gaze flitted about like a hummingbird, lighting on Sam, then Dean, then the flowers in the garden, then the mountains through the trees, then Dean again.

"So, you were out at the farm yesterday?" Her voice had the timbre of gravel sliding from the back of a dump truck, a result of the scar across her throat. Dean swallowed, shot a quick glance at Sam, who had no idea in which direction to take this.

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, throwing caution aside, a sudden change in his posture telling Sam that his brother was about to go for it. Bird of prey, mouse.

Before he could, though, Aurora nodded sagely, took a quick sip from her chipped mug. "Think I didn't know, eh? This is a small place, and you don't look like you're in the market for candles. Only one reason guys like you would visit me. I'm not an idiot."

Okay. Sam leaned forward, and Dean let him. "It's not exactly..._peaceful_ there." A question, and an admission. For better or worse, she would understand both these things.

A long moment passed. Aurora held Sam's gaze while the cicadas hummed in the tall grass and Sam smelled the scent of chamomile and his own sweat. He held his breath. "No. Not peaceful," she agreed. Something amused her, pegged exactly how and why he'd know about the restless spirits that walked the Peacock Farm.

Grateful, truly so, for Dean's cleared throat. And then the calming, soothing weight of Dean's hand on his shoulder, briefly touching before coming up to scratch his nose, making it look seamless and natural. As though he hadn't been conveying _Don't worry, I won't let her get you, Sammy_. Priceless. Always the fucking youngest.

"Can you tell us where Ray Crimson is?" Long past small talk, now. Dean was actually smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes this time. "If he's even alive?"

Aurora leaned away from them, tucked her Birkenstock-clad feet under her skirt as she cradled the mug to her scarred chest. "Your brother should ask him. Bet he knows how, eh? Because I really couldn't tell you."

And Dean got to his feet, inserted his body between Sam and the candlemaker, so Sam couldn't see her, but he could hear well enough and the day was too hot and the tea wasn't helping. He hated chamomile, reminded him of a time when he was ill and Jess had said it would soothe his stomach.

"Sam'll know what to do," she repeated, voice like a body dragged across sand. "He'll know. You, though? I'd watch yourself, there, sweetheart. Ray never liked guys like you."

The door to the workshop opened suddenly, and a tall gaunt figure peered through, long grey hair tangled into his black eyes, a grizzled stooped man who stared at them with an oddly tentative smile. Not a smile, really, just a social convention, a learned, rote mannerism. "Aurora?" he asked quietly. Meant: who are these people?

He wore an old army surplus coat, way too warm for the day, and it was covered in buttons of all sizes and colours, pinned to the lapels, the inside lining, the sleeves, even on the back.

The candlemaker also got to her feet, eyed Dean serenely, and said, "My brother, Rupert. Lives with us." She turned to him, "Would you like some tea, Ru?"

And that was just the signal for them to get moving, which they did without so much as buying a birthday candle. Dean pulled out of the drive with more velocity than was strictly necessary, but Sam couldn't fault him for it, fought the urge to tell him to drive faster.

"Shit!" Dean finally said, slapping the steering wheel with an open palm. "Shit," he repeated a moment later, more softly. "What'd you get from all that, Sam?" I'm at sea, he was saying. Help me with this, Sam, cause her knowing about your shining is just plain freaky.

After shaking the chill Aurora had given him, Sam was actually enjoying the noon heat blasting down on them as they threaded farm roads, heading west, towards town. He took a second to collect his thoughts, then laughed shortly. "Well, she's got me down. I think Crimson must be dead. I wouldn't be surprised if his body is still somewhere on the property. I think he's behind the fear that's in that place. I think she's still scared of him. Her brother, too."

Dean appeared to think about this. The line was between his brows again. Sam wished he could make it go away. "You think she killed him? You see that scar on her neck? That brother was all kinds of weird, with the buttons."

Sam extended his arm out the window, let the air flow around it, made his hand into a blade and cut the air as though it was butter. Did this long enough to know that Dean was staring bullet holes at him. Turned, finally. "She was warning you."

Dean shrugged, and it almost made Sam hit him. "Only one thing to do, then."

--

The girl wasn't there this time, the gate was closed and the booth boarded up. A piece of paper was tacked to the hoarding: Closed on Mondays. Handwritten in marker. No 'i's to give them confirmation that the girl used hearts or happy faces. Dean grimaced, parked the Impala on the dirt verge, and hopped the fence.

Full noon and the farmhouse felt like the inside of an icebox.

Though more prepared for it this time – Dean had retrieved a canvas bag from the trunk with a salt gun, and vials of holy water, and crosses and smudgesticks and spirit wheels and who knew what else – Sam still hoped Aurora was wrong. He hoped that the children wouldn't be as loud, or as plaintive. Most of all, he hoped Dean wouldn't hear them. Children in trouble were always the worst for Dean, he knew, and the analytical part of Sam's nature always made him wonder if it was because of him. He'd been a baby in a burning building and from then on in, everything had changed for Dean. For all of them.

No luck with that, today, because as Sam moved down the hall, trailing his fingers along the wrecked wallpaper and stopping to trace the outline where a picture had once hung, he heard them. Their shrieks. _Don't! Don't hurt her!_ And in front of him, Dean turned sharply to the left, where he was framed in an open doorway, the door off its hinges and lying on the floor, framed like a photograph. Framed like a deer in a hunter's crosshairs.

Sam had time to think that, but only that, before he watched Dean's body slam against the wall with bone-cracking force, followed by a shearing white light that enveloped them both, and the screaming intensified as though the volume on a powerful stereo had been suddenly turned up to full. Sam, crouched on the floor with his hands over his ears, couldn't be sure that the children were the only ones screaming.

A sudden, fraught silence, broken by faint laughter, a man's laughter, and Sam uncurled, head throbbing painfully, looked immediately to where Dean had been. Nothing but a smear of blood on the wallpaper where none had been before. A fleshy scent, open carcass.

Oh God, Sam thought.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**The Peacock Farm** – Chapter 5

**Note: **Side effects may occur – including, but not limited to, dry mouth, heart palpitations, and believing that TV characters belong to you. May result in a sudden urge to create fictional scenarios in which said characters (that belong to large media corporations) can play new games.

**Rated**: T for language and mature situations. It's icky. But nothing you wouldn't see on TV. Canadian TV anyway.

**A/N**: thanks for the reviews! They keep me happy and reasonably docile. This story doesn't have too much longer to run (maybe two more chapters), so the next bits will be bloody and long. Maybe too bloody long.

--

As Sam watched, the blood on the wall began to run, pooling on the floor, spreading, a river without a source.

Then a figure stepped into the hallway, took up considerable space between the bloodied wall and where Sam crouched on the bare floorboards. Too tall to be Dean, and too vivid, somehow, the colours of him all wrong, a TV set with the tint function awry. Wide, but shallow, rippled suddenly in the same way as a flag unfurled in the wind. Not real, but not some insubstantial whispy ghost, either.

The smell of meat, of a butcher's shop, hung in the air. The man's face slowly slid out of focus, then snapped back to clarity. Smiled, _smiled_ at Sam, recognition sparking in his eyes, seeing something in the younger man that gave him amusement or purpose. Sam stayed very still, unable to move, to say anything. No screams anymore, no white light, no pain. Not that kind of pain, anyway. A different kind of pain was emerging, but it was in sequence behind the fear. Sam was not precisely afraid of this thing – demon, ghost, whatever this was – but he was afraid of what it had done to his brother.

Long face, glittering blue eyes, strong high cheekbones that looked as though wind moving across them at the right angle would make them howl. Age was absolutely impossible to determine; it did not matter, and was not worth the exercise.

"Ray Crimson?" Sam asked, voice small and hoarse. Then his fear turned to anger, dredged up heat in that frigid hallway, made of his voice an axe. "Where..."

The laugh interrupted his demand. Bony fingers hovered in the air, reaching for Sam's face. Instinctively, Sam knew those fingers would not touch, could not touch.

"Smart one," the figure breathed.

Sam took a ragged breath, came to his feet and the figure of Ray Crimson rose with him. They were of a height and Sam looked both into and through his eyes. Maintaining focus was difficult, for a good many reasons. From this angle, Sam could see into the room behind, the room from which this apparition had stepped forth; Dean was nowhere to be seen. The canvas bag sat unused, useless on the floor beyond. The blood continued to pool on the floor, crept towards Crimson's feet.

"Where is he?" Sam rasped, barely able to maintain his stillness now, desperate to race around, searching. Better chance of finding out what was going on here. With this thing in front of him. Dean is somewhere near here. His blood is here. God, his blood is...

"He isn't like you. Can't hear me, can he? An injustice has been done, and you must bear witness."

An injustice? _An injustice_? Sam's face contorted into a striking expression of question mark and fuck you. "Where is he?" Sam said again, not recognizing his own voice, eyebrows lifting, disappearing into his hair.

And directly behind Crimson, appeared a child, not more than six. Milky and faint, eyes the size of Canadian dollars, shiny, golden haired. It hazed in and out of existence like the radio reception in the Candleworks. It held a finger to its mouth before turning to run through a far door, out the back, soundless.

"He's a hunter. He understands the risks. You, though. You are something more than that," Crimson held up a hand, palm outwards, and it varied from green to red as it wavered in the air in front of Sam's nose.

"Get out of my way," Sam said and it was a statement of fact, something that he wasn't asking. "I'll deal with you later."

He didn't know exactly what he'd just promised, but it felt right, as final as if he'd signed his name at the bottom of a document. With those words, the specter of Ray Crimson shattered, flew apart in a million pieces, each flying to a different corner of the farmhouse where they shimmered before winking out like fireflies.

Without questioning anything, Sam scooped up the canvas bag, ran out the far doorway, his eyes searching for the small figure of the child. The door opened onto a summer kitchen, the window screens long shredded into cobweb threads, the back garden rife with brambles and moss and rock. The sudden image of the hand-drawn map came to him. _The root cellar_.

Over there, an open door in the side of a grass-covered hummock. Beside the door, almost invisible in the harsh sunlight, the child. A moment, and it waved to him, face serious as only a child can be perfectly serious. Then it was gone.

Sam would never remember crossing the overgrown garden, or the details of what else was contained in the root cellar. What he did remember, what was one of those things that would never leave him, no matter how long he would live, or how many shots of tequila he drank, was Dean.

Blood was everywhere, and the interior was so dark after the brightness outside, that he had trouble at first knowing where the blood was coming from. Then he saw: a deep gash across his brother's throat, but when Sam attempted to pick Dean up, his brother's arm swung from a crazy angle, tendons severed in another deep wound, and Sam felt his stomach rise darkly, like an ocean at night. A small terrifying hiss came from between his brother's blue lips and one hand gestured faintly to his heart. Oh god, his _heart_, Sam thought, as though that might matter, given the slashed throat. Panicking, he lifted Dean's sopping shirt to see raw burns across his chest as if acid had been thrown on him. A rattling, aching wet cough, and more blood gushed from Dean's throat and mouth. Sam snapped open his cell phone: no signal. Tried Dean's: the same. Sam wasn't thinking clearly, was thinking that if only he could get Dean out of there, it might be okay. There was no plan beyond that.

The root cellar wasn't close to the car, but then again, nothing was close enough to the car. Burdened with the weight of his brother, lighter by litres and litres of blood, surely, Sam staggered across the tangled garden, set Dean down by the closed gate before reaching up with a blood-streaked arm, wrestled with the chain, couldn't do it, couldn't manage it, felt the tears coming, the howl of frustration and fear.

The chain snapped apart like a slingshot, made a grating, metallic shotgun blast as it separated. Released, the gate swung silently open. Though he hadn't conceived of doing it, need had once again met talent. Sam wished he knew how he did it. Gasping and retching with everything that he still had to hold inside, Sam shouldered Dean again, got him into the back of the Impala, found the keys in Dean's jeans pocket, and sprayed gravel as he pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

The stench of abattoir filled the car and the shoddy, imperfect stereo immediately produced the indelible scream of Angus Young, as though he'd just been waiting patiently in the tape deck for them to return, left hanging mid-note from when they'd parked. A lifetime ago. Ohgodohgodohgod. Sam's breath was coming in wheezing little gasps, and he tried to concentrate on the road, realizing even as he did so that he had no idea, no idea whatsoever, where a fucking hospital was. He would not cry. Plenty of time for that when he'd figured this out.

Despite his resolve, the road swam suddenly, and Sam wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, driving too fast for these winding roads, the tires squealing on the turns, hot pavement creating sound from friction. _I will save you. I will save –_

Glanced at the rearview mirror, expecting to see the landscape flying by, and instead met Dean's green eyes, astonishingly alert. Then, right by his ear, so close he felt the heat of it, "Dude, ease up on the gas, man."

He swerved off the road at that point. Luckily, a dirt parking lot – a recycling depot – was right there, otherwise they would've been in the ditch. Sam slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel at the same time, scattering gravel and dust before the car came to a rocking rest.

He turned to the backseat, trying not to anticipate, wanting more than anything to hit Dean as hard as he was able. Dean sprawled across the back seat, had been thrown sideways by his brother's stunt driving, and now looked pissed off. "Jesus!" Dean shouted at him. "Where's the fire?"

"Look at you!" Sam screamed at him, ramming the car roughly into park before shutting off the engine. He turned completely around, almost climbing over the back of the seat, and grabbed Dean's shoulders with both hands as his brother came to a proper sit. "Would you fucking _look_ at yourself?"

A little like a kid who'd just been told he'd spilled something on his shirt, Dean looked down to see his blood drenched chest and jeans. Slowly, his chin came back up, confusion turning to horror.

The gaping wound across his neck, on his arm, the burns across his chest, were faint pink marks, no more serious-looking than a sunburn or rash. The blood on their clothes and skin dried quickly in the summer heat, and by the time they pulled into the motel parking lot, nothing remained of the violence other than the dried blood. That and Dean's slight disorientation, and Sam's gibbering fear.

--

As soon as Dean was out of the shower, they argued.

It was inevitable, really, because the first thing Dean said as he emerged from the bathroom scrubbing his wet hair with a thin white motel towel was, "We gotta go back."

So many times over the years, it would have been easy for Sam to have given up on Dean, to let him go his own ornery way. If only Dean would've actually let him. He had a pit bull's grip, though. The big teeth and the locking jaw, impossible to shake. Sam had tried. He'd taken a bus to normal and set up house. And it had lasted until Dean had turned up in Sam and Jessica's living room, bulldog grin, offering an open road. _Can Sam come out and play?_

Sam didn't often seriously argue with Dean, not because he didn't have the chops – Sam would have been a fine lawyer, could argue circles around Dean – but because Dean just didn't listen. It was like having an argument with a batting machine. Those balls kept coming, no matter what you said. Still, he'd go down swinging...and, enough with the baseball metaphors, Sam counseled himself. "You're not going back there. He'll kill you next time."

Dropping the towel to his bare shoulders, Dean spread his arms wide, displaying himself as though he was about to take a bow after a theatre performance. "Yeah. That thing did a lot of damage. I've been hurt worse giving the car an oil change. "

Sam groaned. "Exactly my point," he returned, although it really wasn't his point. He was about to argue from both sides of the board. He wondered if Dean would see through it. "Why are we even doing this? So the farm's crawling with fucking ghosts. They don't seem to be hurting anyone. Shouldn't we get back to where we can, I don't know, save some actual living human beings?"

"You said that Crimson wanted you to witness something. He wanted _you_, Sammy, not me. And so I should walk away from that? He gave me exactly the same marks he gave Aurora, and it didn't feel exactly _friendly_." Dean was getting calmer, which wasn't a good sign. It meant that the next stage would be sarcasm, and then there would be no reasoning with him. "And we still don't know why it's the _exact same fucking farm as the Benders_."

Chew on that, college boy.

He wasn't finished, though. "The Benders didn't want me, either, if you remember. I wasn't the one they took from the parking lot." Dean came close enough that Sam could smell the soap. One finger, cold from the shower, prodded Sam in the chest. "You. They want you. Good enough reason to figure this thing out. If anyone shouldn't be going back there, it's you, not me. Besides," and here it was, and Sam had heard this tone often enough to know exactly what card Dean was about to slam on the table, "you left the weapons in the root cellar."

--

Okay, so Dean got the last word. Didn't mean, didn't ever mean, he got his way. It was a tacit agreement, that one. They weren't going to go back tonight, even if it meant that some lucky band of partying teenagers stumbled upon a sackful of arcane weapons. And one rock salt loaded rifle. None of it was traceable, Sam knew. And the root cellar wasn't exactly big enough for a party. Maybe the child's ghost would watch over it.

Instead, he convinced Dean to go to bed early while he stayed up looking through online journal archives and scanned the thin community phone book. He made some calls. By the time the local news came on – Dean was out like a Friday night drunk, snoring as though it kept away vampires – Sam had located RCMP Constable Bill Williams, retired, who had been one of the cops at the scene in 1972. Maybe because the hour was late and the ex-Mountie talkative, but Sam learned a lot more from a cop than he usually did. Sam fell asleep secure in the knowledge that before he went back to the Peacock Farm, before he went back to witness whatever he had promised he would, he would know what had happened from the mouth of someone who'd been there: Millie Thorpe, who lived across the river in Abbotsford, who was crazy as monkeyshit – according to Constable Williams, ret. – and who loved nothing more than finding someone to tell her tale to. Here's her phone number. Almost as simple as looking up in a laundromat and seeing it printed on a poster, Sam thought with a smile as he peered across at Dean's utterly slack face. Almost.

--

Constable Williams hadn't been wrong: Millie Thorpe was all kinds of nuts.

First of all, they had to sign in. Hospital regulations. She had no relatives, apparently, so the staff was excited as all hell to tell her that she had visitors, especially ones as handsome as you. That to Dean, not Sam, who would never get a complex about it, no matter how many times it happened. And besides, Dean could use the compliment: despite the long sleep, he still looked pale and a little shaky. Sam had watched him eat a Trucker's Breakfast at the motel's diner, which probably had the calorific content of seven deluxe sushi bento boxes.

They waited in the conservatory, really just a dumping ground for every dead and dying houseplant in the residence. The room was cooled by a flaccid ceiling fan, which is to say, not at all. Sam watched it go round and round as a rivulet of sweat ran between his shoulder blades and collected somewhere beyond his leather belt. Dean rattled his key – and what kind of life did they lead that between them they owned _one_ key – against his knee as it bounced up and down.

"Still going back," Dean said, so softly Sam almost didn't hear him. He might have been humming a tune.

"You've already said," Sam replied, still watching the fan, hoping that by watching it, he might cool down.

"Just saying." Like the words to a song.

"I know," Sam said without thinking.

"Still going," in a singsong tone. This time Sam turned to him, igniting with sudden anger, only to get caught in Dean's wide grin, see the gleam in his eyes. _Gottcha_.

"Fuck off." Sam snorted, leaning back into the hard bench, the warped invention of some designer who had never, evidently, sat in it.

"All those years of advanced education, and that's what you come up with." A glancing, mocking reference. Only in jest, that's what they had in place of real conversation and it pissed Sam off no end.

Sam was saved from further fraternal torment by a tapping noise, the sound of slender wood exploring a terrazzo floor. From around the corner, a woman came into the room, feeling her way with a telescoping cane, grey hair wild about her face and shoulders, skinny as a Afghan hound, a huge smile on her face, lipstick haphazardly placed, as though without the aid of a mirror.

Without the aid of something.

In place of eyes, she had sheets of mottled skin, stretched like drumheads across sockets empty and dry. What next, Sam thought, wondering where the weirdness of this whole trip was going to end.

"My guests!" Millie announced delightedly and hugged them, although squeezing Dean cold like that was tantamount to embracing a crotchety rottweiller. He suffered it, though he didn't look pleased. "You want to hear about Ray, don't you?" she continued conversationally, waving around her stick as though she meant to skewer them. "Sit down, sit down. I haven't talked about this in donkey's years. Not since Polly came by doing her research and that's been ages now."

"You lived at the farm," Sam prompted, since Dean had blanched, whether a result of the hug or something else. They eased back into the uncomfortable seats and Sam got out a pad of paper and a pen. Millie kept smiling. She looked like a very fucked up sea turtle, and Sam was grateful he could concentrate on making notes while she talked.

Once started, she only stopped once, when Sam's pen ran out of ink; Millie waited while he fished around in his book bag found one before she started again. Sam had no idea how she knew his pen had died, or when he'd found a new one. For the whole time, Dean said not one single word. He had that raptor like quality to him again, vigilant, ready.

It was a hell of a story. At sixteen, Millie had been introduced to Ray Crimson. He had made quite an impression on her: handsome, intelligent, attentive. He made a small-town girl like Millie feel special and grown up. He had lots of women around him and it wasn't long before he'd purchased the farm for them all to create a new family. He'd told them that it had come cheap; there had been stories about the place. A family had lived there in the 1930s, a family about whom there'd been talk. Talk of sons sleeping with mothers, and deformed babies. It had unsettled the community, and no one liked to have it mentioned. Ray had seemed intrigued, Millie said, as though he thought he'd be able to harness that sort of thing.

At its peak, the farm had housed a small colony of men, women, and many children. People came and went. Millie remembered Aurora clearly: hard, practical, jealous. Millie's voice changed when she spoke of her; she'd been cheery, almost chipper before, but when she talked about Aurora, her voice went low, dead. The brother, Rupert, was trouble. He'd brought in money with the buttons, all right, and had been devoted to Ray Crimson, almost to the point of slavishness. But young Omni Radiance had been a special favourite of Ray's – beautiful, pure, good. Everyone could see that Ray loved her. Especially Aurora.

One night, Ray and Omni disappeared. By that time, Omni hadn't been able to disguise her pregnancy. Millie said that Aurora had gone wild, claiming that Ray had stolen all the farm's money, had disgraced the spirits they honoured. Then, clearly, so her visitors would make no mistake: "She wanted all of us to die, together. She poisoned the well. I told everyone to get out, and some of them did, hid in the woods. Aurora did this," and she gestured spasmodically to her face. "And while I was lying there, for days, up in my room, I heard other things. Dark things. Screams. It was a long time before the police came. I'll never forget the screams."

I'll bet, Sam thought, still looking at his pad of paper, at the tight scrawl that he'd perfected in the back of a moving car. His pen hovered for a moment, then he wrote, in upper case letters SCARS? and turned the pad to Dean.

Dean shrugged as though it was of no importance. Scars? What scars?

"What about Aurora's scars?" Sam asked, scowling at Dean.

"She did that to herself. Or had Rupert do it. She didn't want to go to jail. She said Ray Crimson did it. But he wasn't there. She had Rupert hide the baby..."

Sam made a little noise, then, involuntary.

"Omni's baby," Millie clarified. "She took it and raised it as her own. Then, when she was barely old enough, whored the child out to that brother of hers, and got her pregnant before she was fourteen. I kept track, you know. I have friends in the force. That's how they got Polly, god help that girl."

"And what happened to her? Omni and Ray's daughter?" Sam asked, felt he had to. "The mother of Polly?"

"Married her off to some relative in Minnesota was what I heard. Same place that Bob Dylan came from. Always loved Bob, but I'll be a brain surgeon before I'll be booking a trip there. The Benders, I think. That was a _very_ peculiar family."

Sam swallowed and could find no sliver of satisfaction in connecting the dots between a farm in Hibbing, Minnesota and one in Mission, BC. "And Polly?" They hadn't seen any kids at the Candleworks, but he suddenly remembered Aurora saying that Rupert lived with them. _Them_.

"Oh, that poor girl. Spends her time hanging around the farm. I'd be willing to bet that both her grandparents were murdered there and that their bodies are buried on the property, though Polly didn't seem to know it when she visited me." Millie shook her head. "And no, I didn't tell her. Seemed...unkind. Besides, she was with her sponsor from the historical society. Some kind of school project. But she's getting to an age where she really ought to be away from that brother of Aurora's." She leaned forward, and Sam looked up. "He's not right. And he'll do anything Aurora says."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**The Peacock Farm** – Chapter 6

**A/N:** Okay, you remember that detective who was always sticking his head in the lieutenant's office in _Law & Order_ with some piece of crucial information? Little hairy guy, looked like he had a beaver pelt on his head? We always called him Det. Plot Development. And I'm afraid I'm so guilty of resorting to that with Crazy Millie the Exposition Lady last chapter. But, hell, I _had_ to move this baby along somehow, and if it's good enough for Dick Wolf, it's good enough for me.

Special thanks to Tigerdrake for giving me a brilliant idea about how to handle Dean's injuries.

So-o-o-o, where were we? Yes: don't own the boys, the car they drive in, the monsters they hunt. Bad language, various and sundry spoilers exist: read at own risk.

--

Dean was out the car before Sam, was practically out the car before it rolled to a full stop. The girl, Polly, stared at him as though he'd just set his head on fire, the book balanced on her lap, blonde hair hanging in her eyes. She looked just as hot and bored as she had the first time they'd seen her, in exactly the same spot. As Dean rushed up to her, she crossed her legs, anticipating, perhaps, a demand for a refund. Dean had that way about him, sometimes, that sort of energy that put people on the defensive.

Sam approached more slowly, long legs swinging easy, almost at a cowboy pace. He could hear his brother's voice, pitched at PBS announcer again. Sam wondered if Dean knew how annoying that was, and how it put people's backs up, especially barely-teen girls. "Listen, Polly," he tested, and Sam almost winced as he saw Polly's eyes narrow. He now stood at Dean's shoulder, easily peered over it and gave Polly a little nod. Polly's lips pressed together.

"We'd like a second look," Sam inserted, nothing of guile, or persuasion, or intimidation in it, hoping to avert a showdown. He had a five-dollar bill in his hand, where Dean couldn't immediately see it.

"Five bucks doesn't get you much," Polly said, looking at them as though they were mental. What else could you possibly want to see there? her expression suggested. "How'd you know my name?" Not sharply, but confused. Young, Sam thought. So incredibly young. Tried not to think about Rupert, who had fathered her, according to Millie, or how her grandparents had died, not far from here, just across the overgrown garden there, down the path.

"We visited Aurora," Dean replied, and brought an insincere authority to it, a school vice-principal's false chumminess before discipline.

Polly shrugged indifferently. Sam wondered if Dean got it right then, if he suddenly saw the resemblance between this girl in front of them and the 13-year-old that had held him hostage at the Bender farm months ago while her family had burned poker holes in him. Polly's half sister. Saw a flash of it in her opaque disinterest, then it was gone, replaced by a bemused smile. "Grandma owns the place. 'Spect she told you. You see the root cellar?" offering up that like some consolation prize.

"Uh, yeah," Dean was surprised; Sam heard the hitch to his tone.

"Kids play in there. Always spooked me."

Sam smiled at her, holding out the five-dollar bill, hoping Dean wouldn't cause a scene. He was tight with money, for all that he scammed it, never seeing anything remotely ironic about his thrift. "Knock yourselves out," Polly murmured with finality, returning to the book.

Dean was already striding down the path, so he didn't see his brother forking over their ill-gotten money. Sam was still considering Polly, wondering at her removed boredom, and so he missed just how many steps his older brother was able to take before he collapsed. The dried grass was high as his knees, home to colonies of grasshoppers and butterflies that burst cover as Dean's body crashed to the ground.

At Sam's wordless cry – some unholy conglomeration of vowels – Polly came to her feet, her book falling to the plywood flooring of the booth, its landing the only sound in the hollow silence that followed Sam's shout. She took a step out, canvas sneakers grass-stained, lace-less. Stood hovering, unwilling to come closer or retreat.

Sliding to his knees beside Dean, Sam was appalled at how much blood poured from the slashed throat, the chest, the arm. Gory, and bloody, and shocking, especially in the beautiful sunlight with smell of summer-burnt grass suddenly overpowered by the metallic, ferrous tang of blood.

Dean's eyes were wide with shock, one hand held out to Sam, who took it with a shaking grip, hard as death. One long moment of horror, then Sam pulled Dean to his chest and dragged him – knowing how much that must hurt, Dean's savaged arm hanging with all the grace of a cut joint of meat – back to the booth, hoping that Polly wouldn't start screaming.

She didn't. She stood very still and composed, eyes large, and watched. The deep cuts, the exposed tendons and bone, the pulsing blood, were all present in a way that something long dead – a T-bone steak, a pickled fetal pig in a high school biology lab – could never be. Dust curled up as Sam pulled, his throat making a creaking, wheezing noise, some elemental expression of grief. And once through the gate, having left a trail of blood even an aged Llasa Apso could follow, Dean went boneless, and the blood suddenly stopped flowing.

For a rash endless moment, Sam thought the Dean was dead, that all the blood in his body must have run out. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. And Dean jerked awake, bucket of ice-water at midnight quick, coming to a seated position beside the Impala on the roadside, drenched in his own blood, but without a mark on him. Swearing voluminously, not bothering to candy-coat the weird.

"Goddamnit, Sam," he growled, glaring at him as though all this was his fault. Against the backdrop of scarlet, his eyes shone vivid green.

He slapped away Sam's hand, then swayed into it as he came to his feet. Stubborn. Pig-headed. Sam steadied him for a moment, watched him lean against the car. Polly didn't say a word, not for a long moment. Then, "This have something to do with the ghosts?"

Oh great, just great. Dean, gore all over him, sighed furiously, teeth flashing white in a truly frightening facsimile of a smile. "You might have said something sooner, sweetheart."

Convinced that Dean was going to be fine, Sam grimaced, pulling dimples to either side of his clamped lips. He knew what he'd have to do next. At least Dean wouldn't be able to argue this. He wouldn't like it, though. The day was reaching its heat zenith, and trickle of sweat ran down the side of Sam's face. He didn't like his idea either, for one main reason: Polly.

"Gotta go in, Dean," he said quietly, bracing himself.

For a moment, he thought that Dean hadn't heard him, but that wasn't it. His brother was staring straight at him, and all the years of letting Sam get away with stuff because he was younger, or protecting him when he didn't need it, or even letting him walk away from their dangerous, precarious life, _all of it_ was in that stare. There was nothing Dean could do about this, except bleed out in the dirt. Which he just might have done, if he'd thought it would stop Sam from going in. So Sam had to be convincing.

"Someone needs to watch her," he said quietly so she wouldn't hear, sliding his glance to where she stood on the dirt by a drying splatter of Dean's blood.

"I'm not staying here with him," she said. Sharp-eared. "Besides, it's been awhile since I talked to them." Meaning the ghosts, Sam surmised. An asset? She looked Dean up and down, something the cat had coughed up. "They sure don't like you, do they?"

And as they crossed over the line that separated public road from private farm, the line that meant life and death to Dean, Polly turned, walked a few steps backwards before grinning at Dean, who had to see the resemblance now. "Don't forget if anyone comes – five bucks."

If Dean hadn't been covered in blood, it might have been funny.

--

Sam went to the root cellar first, and if Polly was surprised it contained a canvas bag full of weapons, she didn't show it. He pulled out the rifle, loaded it with salt cartridges, and pulled back the action, feeling stupid and fake. Guns always did that to him. Dean handled guns like he handled a tape deck or a knife and fork; Sam envied him that ease, because he always felt like a little kid in a caped costume around them. He had practiced, though, and he could be convincing.

They went in through the summer kitchen, Sam in the lead, though Polly didn't look remotely scared, actually had her arms crossed over her chest, one finger circling a strand of blonde hair and tugging. He eased into the central hallway, saw the dark bloodstain on the wall, leftover from the other day. Flies buzzed around it. Real enough.

"Oh, hi," Polly said suddenly, and her voice brightened, became animated in a way Sam hadn't heard before. He turned sharply, and for a moment saw nothing. Then a small face peeked around the doorjamb by the kitchen, just where it had before. Wavery, whispy, not quite there. Polly bent down. "This one's nice," she whispered to Sam, holding out her hand to the phantom child.

The ghost child emitted a gurgling giggle, full of fun, and disappeared. Sam wondered where the 'not nice' ones might be.

On cue, he felt a cold wash, like standing in front of an open fridge in your boxers, and the specter of Ray Crimson appeared, clicked on like an old TV, wavered once, then snapped into place. More substantial than most ghosts Sam had seen, wearing a suspicious expression, which might have had something to do with the fact that Sam had the rifle pointed right at him.

Crimson held his arms out slightly, black suit muting between green and midnight purple.

"Is he here?" Polly whispered, and she clutched Sam's arm. Not in fear, but so he would lower the gun. "I can't see him, but I can sometimes hear him. He's here, isn't he?"

Sam met Crimson's stare, and the ghost's eyebrows lifted, asking permission. An electric buzz crackled in the room, and suddenly Sam was seeing bone, and mottled flesh, and a skull. Then another snap, and Crimson was back in a more recognizable form. He's stretched thin, Sam thought.

"Why'd you do that to my brother?" he demanded, unsympathetic.

Crimson sighed. "I needed your attention, and he would have shot first." Lifted those brows again, asking if that wasn't true. Sam gave a brief, unsatisfactory nod. "And you needed to know that Aurora was involved." The colours of him swirled briefly, anger given spectral form. "So you'd recognize her work."

Sam glanced at Polly, but she was only staring at Sam. "What's he saying?" she asked, looking as though she actually hadn't wanted to say that out loud.

"Wanted to make sure I didn't shoot him," Sam explained, though it was no explanation.

She pursed her lips. "Are you?" And that was a very good question. Sam lowered the rifle.

"What do you want?" he asked, careful to keep Polly behind him, ready to move at a second's notice.

"Not want," Crimson replied, so softly Sam had to lean forward. "Need." The ghost straightened, started to pace, something Sam was fairly sure had been a telling sign when Crimson had actually walked the earth.

"Burn your bones?" Sam offered. Beside him, Polly stiffened at the suggestion.

"No," Crimson stopped his pacing, came close to Sam, close enough that Sam could see the maggots writhing in the suit creases. "I need my murderer here. And I need my granddaughter to know what happened."

Sam cleared his throat, stalling. "Or what?"

Crimson blinked, and Sam caught something unexpected: pity. "How easy is it for you, being with him?" The ghost gestured out the window to where Sam could see the Impala, and Dean sitting on the hood.

"Easy enough," Sam shot back. One thing could make him defensive, and this ghost apparently knew it.

"Easy," the ghost breathed, but it was still pity Sam heard. "How easy will it be when you have to bury him?"

"Is that a threat?" A thread of poison had wound its way to Sam's voice. And damnit if he still didn't hear anything more than pity. Crimson was shaking his head vehemently, though, and now there was no mistaking how badly the ghost felt for Sam.

"I said it the first time I saw you: he's a hunter. And one day, you won't be there, or you won't be fast enough, and you'll just have to make your peace with that. Trust me. Why do you think I came to this farm in the first place, with all its ghosts, and its past? Why do you think I married someone like Aurora? Let her brother stay with us?"

Sam thought hard, but didn't really want to find the answer, because he knew he wouldn't like it, that it would change how he felt about _everything_. Still, he cleared his throat again, cleared it of an unexpected thickness. "You wanted to fix it. That's what you did, in life. You fixed things."

Crimson nodded, and a bit of moldy fabric dropped to the floor, disappeared without a trace. "I hunted things," he clarified, when it became apparent that Sam wouldn't. "And it's time for me to rest. You're good at putting things to rest; he's better at killing things." And he had that 'am I not right?' look in his eyes again.

Curtly, Sam acknowledged that truth. He didn't have to consider it, not yet. "I don't think that Aurora will come here."

Polly, who had started to look bored again as Sam spoke with her invisible and inaudible grandfather, perked up at that. "Hell, no. She's said that she'll put a bullet in her brain before she'd do that."

Crimson didn't look alarmed, not at all. He leaned against the wall, all long arms and legs, maggoty clothes and mangy hair. Odd, not even. But resigned. "Aurora technically wasn't the one who murdered me."

"Rupert," Sam breathed and Polly ran to the window.

"He's here," she called over her shoulder, the light from outside limning her gold in the frigid room. "He hardly ever comes here."

A decrepit van pulled to a stop beside the Impala, and in the distance, a door slammed. Would Dean stop him? Sam wondered, then glanced at Crimson, who was barely holding himself together. "What about the children?" he suddenly asked. "What about their ghosts?"

A cold, cold wind suddenly flew through the house, powerful enough to gust up dust, tangle Polly's hair, and fill Sam's T-shirt with air. He shivered. Crimson hadn't moved. "Can't fix everything," Crimson shrugged. "They've been here awhile, longer than me. They might disappear once I'm gone," his mouth turned down, regret colouring his words. "They liked it when Omni was around."

Omni. The bright light, the joyous one. Polly's grandmother. Found under the floorboards, hacked to death.

"Get Rupert to tell you what happened. Polly has to hear it. And then make sure that bastard doesn't go anywhere near her." The ghost wasn't looking at Sam anymore; he was staring at Polly and something like love was in those dark eyes that shifted from blue to red to the empty sockets of a skull.

Leaving the rifle propped against the wall, Sam stood out on the porch for a minute, cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted his brother's name. Dean's splattered form turned – he'd apparently been in conversation with Rupert – and then Sam called Rupert's name and waved him down. Dean held his arms out in a pathetic, 'what about me?' gesture. Sam didn't know how to begin to apologize; he was simply grateful Dean didn't follow the gaunt fatigue-clad figure across the field. Sam had enough on his plate.

Inside, Sam took up the gun again, and as Rupert shuffled in, brought it to his shoulder, the muzzle no more than two feet from Rupert's chest. It was only rock salt, but Sam knew from bitter experience what kind of damage rock salt could do. Besides, for all Rupert knew, it was loaded with gunpowder and shot.

The button man looked confused, but irrationally pleased to see Polly, who had taken up position next to Crimson. She didn't know that, of course, but Crimson looked grimly satisfied. Rupert's pleasure at seeing his daughter, or his granddaughter, or however Aurora had described to Polly his relationship to her – was unfeigned and sickeningly creepy. Sam's hand shook a little, and he was usually rock solid. His mouth was dry.

"You forgot your lunch, dear," Rupert said. Crimson came away from the wall, circled behind Rupert, who seemed to understand that they were not alone in the room. "You shouldn't be in here, Polly. It's not...natural."

"Why don't you tell her about that?" Sam said, finger hugging the trigger, ready. His heart was going double-time, and it almost hurt. "Tell her about her grandfather."

"Ray Crimson?" Polly's brow furrowed slightly, pensive. "I _know_ about Ray Crimson. He tried to kill my grandmother. Took off and abandoned this place, left a whole group of hippies without anything."

"Left a body under the floorboards," Sam whispered, his attention entirely on Rupert, whose army surplus jacket sagged under the weight of multi-hued buttons, a mosaic of cheap advice and clichés. _Peace on earth. Life gives you lemons. Smile, be happy. I know I am, but what are you?_ "And I don't think he ever left this place, do you, Rupert?"

Rupert shifted away, hands scrabbling at the walls, knocking loose chunks of crumbly plaster. His gaze darted around, trying to anticipate something for which there was no preparation, no milk runs. "I never done nothing I wasn't told to."

Sam _so_ didn't want Polly to be in the room. He didn't want her to hear what was coming next. Because Rupert was a fool, and a killer, and he was a coward as well, but he was not a liar.

So he spoke of that night when Aurora had found Omni packing her things, and when Crimson had told her they were leaving. Aurora told him to do it, Rupert whined, his nose running, because he was crying. And he was not looking at Sam; he was looking at Polly, and Sam wanted to shoot him right then.

Rupert had used poison, then slit Crimson's throat and cut him to pieces, parts of him thrown down the well, buried in the memorial garden, under the dirt of the root cellar. Rupert had no idea of how many spots around the farm Ray Crimson's body might be. Did it really matter? he asked, and Crimson's ghost shook his head, but Sam couldn't tell if he agreed or not.

Otherwise, Crimson was like a vaguely flickering statue, still, composed and remote. There was only one moment when he showed any emotion whatsoever; when Rupert admitted to being Polly's father. At that, he reached out to Polly, and his hand passed harmlessly through her. He could hunt, apparently, could inflict wounds. He could not comfort, and Sam tucked away that knowledge for later digestion, knowing it wouldn't be pleasant.

Rupert only stumbled once in his recitation, when he described the baby, how beautiful she'd been, how desirable. Made that observation on the same breath as he described, literally blow-by-blow, how he'd cut apart Omni and stuffed her corpse under the back bedroom's floorboards.

And then, with Crimson standing behind him, Rupert saw how Sam's attention wandered for a minute to Polly, to her sharp intake of breath. How the barrel of the gun dipped infinitesimally, how Sam's grip was not what it should have been. The ghosts were not what Sam ought to have been worrying about after all. The Benders had taught him nothing, apparently; humans were always, always worse.

The air was torn again, not by cold, but by sound: a single shotgun blast, ringing in the small confines of an empty farmhouse, causing eardrums to rattle at this close range. Causing a haunting to suddenly cease, and a brother to run, terrified of what he might find, across a line that ought to have meant death.

TBC


	7. Epilogue

**The Peacock Farm** - Epilogue

The Mounties only wore the famous red serge uniform when they were on parade, or during the Musical Ride, or guarding the Queen. Otherwise, they were cops, plain and simple. And, young man? Even though the murders happened almost four decades ago, this farm is a crime scene, and no, you are not going to pass the police line.

For the second time in as many days, Dean looked as though he was going to test that line. He ran a finger along the yellow tape, collected raindrops before shaking his hand of wetness and wiping it on his thigh. The rain was coming down sideways, a real West Coast soaking. Everything about the place had changed with the rain; it now looked like every X-Files episode ever filmed, green, lush, dripping with damp. The Peacock Farm was wreathed in mist, dotted with cops, a backhoe parked waiting by the memorial garden, little orange flags pushed into the ground at various points, a big 'closed' sign on the booth's plywood door.

Sam, safe and dry inside the car, watched the windows fog up. For a moment, he considered wiping his window clear so he could get a better look at whatever argument Dean was going to give the cop. Nah, not worth the bother. Instead, he extended his index finger and wrote: Dean is a rat fink. Backwards, so someone else would be able to read it.

Someone like his brother, who jumped back into the car, turned the key and checked over his shoulder all in one movement. Another thing he made look ridiculously easy.

"Any arrests?" Sam asked, daring Dean to say anything about the window. The defogger was kicking in; if he didn't look soon, he'd miss it. Dean's stare was grim, disconsolate and Sam had his answer; his brother isn't in the mood for feeble jokes.

"Aurora's clamming up, hired herself a lawyer. Rupert's in a psychiatric hospital," with a glance to Sam as if to say, _what a baby, can't even take a rock salt blast to the chest_. A sore point with Sam, so Dean didn't pursue it. "They're going to bring charges against him, once they've figured out how many bodies are buried here." He paused, faked a look in the rear-view mirror to cover the sudden strain in his voice. "They've been finding kids. They're not sure how long they've been there. Could take months to sort it all out."

Sam left it, not wanted to pick at a scab, not sure how to, even if he'd wanted to. Always with the kids, Dean. Fix it. But he knew his job, part of which was to get Dean past these kinds of rough spots. "Polly called."

No reaction, other than the brow. Swallowed a smile. "You'll never guess what she said."

It was like pulling teeth, sometimes. Sam sighed.

"She's going to stay with a girlfriend in the city," he laughed lightly, peering between the wipers as they slapped against the rain. "Wants to break into film."

Watched as Dean tried to bite back a smile.

--

Midnight came and went and still they were waiting in the line up. Dean said he wasn't worried about the border. Sam didn't believe him, didn't believe it would be that easy. The passports were on the dash, and Sam nursed a coffee, balanced between his knees because the Impala didn't have cupholders and Dean insisted the car remain as vintage as possible. Not that the sentiment extended to the tape deck, or the music, of course.

"Starsky," Dean said, throwing his empty cup to Sam's feet. He had already rolled up the rim according to the instructions on the cup, but he'd only been told to 'try again'. Sam was holding out for the SUV prize.

"What? I get Hutch?" Sam's face screwed up in distaste. "He's boring."

"What kinda car did Hutch drive?" Dean shot back as though that was a coherent argument. "I ask you. I'm so Starsky."

No fucking way he should be playing this, not with Dean. It was a fool's game.

"_And_ Han Solo," Dean added. Oh, and he was so delighted, which was totally the point of this verbal version of Sam flagellating himself. "Captain Kirk, Starbuck, Bart."

Which left Sam holding the Luke, Spock, Apollo, and Lisa bag. And, truth be told, he didn't mind all that much. "Do I get to be Joe, at least? He was the younger brother," he sulked half-heartedly. From his grin, Dean so wasn't going to give him even that.

"But Frank was _smart_. Wouldn't you rather be smart, Sammy?"

"Rather than what? Stupid?"

Dean shrugged, eased the car one spot forward. "Good-looking."

"Does that mean I have to be Scully?" Sam finished his coffee, and tried to follow the instructions to win that SUV. Took him a little while to unroll the cardboard cup's rim, only to discover that he, too, should try again. "Dean?"

He wasn't listening, not to Sam, anyway. Listening to that inner voice. "Do you think the it's out there – the truth? Really?" he asked after a long moment. Sam could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard that tone in his brother's voice.

Swallowed once, and that was one moment too long, too long for Dean to stay there. "You're so Scully, bitch." Took the passports off the dash. "Win anything?"

--

Okay, he had no idea about the border. For all he knew, they'd be arrested on the spot. One little scenario he'd imagined over and over again, was the one where a half-dozen guards studied his passport and laughed themselves sick. Asked him to get out of the car. Then pulled out their firearms, wanting to know what a known murderer was doing back from the dead. And Sam would go that silent hurt way of his and they'd find all the guns. Dean couldn't take it past that. He'd always stop on Sam.

It didn't happen that way. The booth was lit up, and the border guard was succinct, wanting to get his shift over with, maybe. They sailed through, returning Americans. It was giving the reason for their visit that almost undid Dean. He actually choked on his sudden giddy laugh, when asked that. The reason? Oh, pleasure, definitely. Some fishing, he said, knowing the word 'hunting' would be suspect, would lead immediately to thoughts of guns and bullets. Visiting friends, he added, fighting the bubble of ill-timed laughter.

Across, and down into Washington State, heading towards Spokane, wishing he knew why.

Over his young life, Dean had driven more miles than he cared to think about, long lines of yellow and white, humps of dead skunk and porcupine, armadillo and rabbit. He'd know which part of the country he was in just by the roadkill. Driving: Dad driving, Sam driving. Then those times by himself. At least Sam was here now, crazy long body hunched over and lightly snoring. Being alone was worse than just about anything, though he'd never admit it, not even to himself. He just thought about how good it was to have Sam here, concentrated on what was, not what had been. Not what might be.

And then Dean discovered something, glancing over to see the regular rise and fall of Sam's chest, his breath fogging the passenger window enough so Dean could just see the word 'fink'. He smiled. The truth wasn't out there, it was in here, and that was enough.

-30-

**A/N:** Sorry if I've confused any Americans out there with the whole reference to the 'roll up the rim to win' contest that Tim Hortons runs. I don't know if there's an American equivalent to Tim's; maybe Krispy Kreme, but that doesn't begin to convey the shocking _love_ Canadians bestow on the largely unworthy Tim's. Canada is completely lousy with them – and their advertising agency keeps pushing the Canadian 'patriotism' button with their ad campaigns. That's right: Canadian patriotism as represented by a _doughnut shop chain_. Think about it, my American cousins. Isn't that just plain pathetic? Be thankful I spared you the Canadian Tire Guy (don't even ask). If I thought anyone would get it, I'd have had the Canadian Tire Guy as my response to the 'Stupidest Monster – Ever' challenge on this site (Canadians everywhere are weeping with laughter right now, imagining _that_ advertising nightmare as potential Winchester salt gun fodder). Reviews are always welcome, and I value each and every one, but especially visits from the Continuity Cops.


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